Cite as: 517 U. S. 44 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
clearly recognized a pre-existing principle of sovereign immunity, broader than the Eleventh Amendment itself, that will ordinarily bar federal-question suits against a nonconsenting State. That was the "rationale" which was sufficient to decide Hans and all of its progeny prior to Union Gas. But leaving aside the indefensibility of that rationale, which I will address further below, that was as far as it went.
The majority, however, would read the "rationale" of Hans and its line of subsequent cases as answering the further question whether the "postulate" of sovereign immunity that "limit[s] and control[s]" the exercise of Article III jurisdiction, Monaco, supra, at 322, is constitutional in stature and therefore unalterable by Congress. It is true that there are statements in the cases that point toward just this conclusion. See, e. g., Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 98 (1984) ("In short, the principle of sovereign immunity is a constitutional limitation on the federal judicial power established in Art. III"); Ex parte New York, 256 U. S. 490, 497 (1921) ("[T]he entire judicial power granted by the Constitution does not embrace authority to entertain a suit brought by private parties against a State without consent given . . ."). These statements, however, are dicta in the classic sense, that is, sheer speculation about what would happen in cases not before the court.20 But this
"rel[ying] on precepts underlying but not explicit in Art. III and the Eleventh Amendment").
20 There are good reasons not to take many of these statements too seriously. Some are plainly exaggerated; for example, the suggestion in Great Northern Life Ins. Co. v. Read, 322 U. S. 47, 51 (1944), that "[a] state's freedom from litigation was established as a constitutional right through the Eleventh Amendment" obviously ignores a State's liability to suit by other States, see, e. g., South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286 (1904), and by the National Government, see, e. g., United States v. Texas, 143 U. S. 621 (1892). See also Nevada v. Hall, supra, at 420, n. 19 (noting that "the Eleventh Amendment has not accorded the States absolute sovereign immunity in federal-court actions"). Similarly, statements such as in Ex parte New York, 256 U. S., at 497, that "the entire judicial
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